Support groups vital for cancer patients

When breast cancer patients sign up for the “Get Fit” program at St. Anne’s Hospital, it turns out they get more than just fit.

Jay Pateakos

When breast cancer patients sign up for the “Get Fit” program at St. Anne’s Hospital, it turns out they get more than just fit.

“One thing I realized in my own situation is that there are people out there to help you and this is a little gem of a city here and many people don’t know how good it is here, how good we have it,” said Gilda Harrison, 79, of Somerset. “The people at St. Anne’s and in this class have helped me a great deal.”

Harrison was anxious about her results from a December 2005 mammogram when she got a phone call to see a radiologist.

“I was like ‘what the heck do I have to do that for, that’s never happened,’ ” said Harrison. “But they had found a lump in my left breast that was malignant but had not spread to lymph nodes. But with a bad heart and other ailments, you look at this and go, gee, this too God? You start to feel sorry for yourself.”

After six weeks of radiation therapy, Harrison was ready to leave cancer behind, but her husband suggested that she take the exercise class geared specifically toward breast cancer patients.

“He said it would be good for me, but I was the last person who wanted to exercise, but I love it now,” said Harrison, who joined a dozen other women in the class.

She said seeing so many young women taking the class puts things in perspective.

“You see young girls in here who haven’t even lived their lives yet and here I am, an old lady, married for 60 years now. They have their whole life ahead of them, but I’ve lived mine,” said Harrison.

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Diagnosed in spring 2004, Joan Waring, 74, of Somerset, was “floored” when a routine mammogram found traces of breast cancer. After having a lumpectomy, Waring went through six weeks of radiation treatment, which left her constantly tired and thirsty.

“I was shocked when they told me I had to come in and talk with them because I felt it was just another routine mammogram, and of course, my treatments were in the dead of winter” said Waring. “but I’ve had no reoccurrence in five years.”

Sixty-six year old Somerset resident Margaret McCaffrey remembers the 1995 day well — a Wednesday — when she received her diagnosis. She eventually underwent a mastectomy of her right breast, then agreed to study for high dose chemotherapy in which she agreed to six treatments within a 21-day period.

“I declined it at first because the side effects were horrible, but my doctor told me its something I should do,” said McCaffrey. “The doctor said taking it would limit the chance of reoccurrence.”

As debilitating as the chemotherapy was, McCaffrey said the worst part of the ordeal had nothing to do with treatment.

“In 1997, I had reconstructive surgery where they took tissue from my stomach area and used it for my breast,” said McCaffrey. “That’s the most pain I’ve had. One thing you hear a lot of is there are many more success stories than there are not.”

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When Harrison tells her story, people ask her about her treatment from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and each time she has to remind them that she didn’t have to travel to Boston at all, that everything she needed was right her in Fall River.

Radiation oncology doctors at St. Anne’s also spend a day each week at Dana-Farber, Brigham and Womens and Harvard Medical School.

“My sister had her husband die at age 50 of cancer and she always told me ‘you should go to Dana-Farber for your treatments’ and I tell her the same thing each time. You know what, I’ve got a little bit of Dana-Farber coming to me.”